


Mildred Hubble and the Bloods Birthright

by unicyclehippo



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, Mildred Hubble Hogwarts AU, i dont have a plot im just writing whatever i feel like
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-03 17:17:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15823425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicyclehippo/pseuds/unicyclehippo
Summary: Mildred Hubble attends Hogwarts, makes friends and enemies, and is drawn into a darker plot than anyone knew dwelt within the walls of the magical school.





	1. In which the Hubble Household receives a visitor, Mildred gets a surprise, and Julie reveals a secret

Mildred Hubble is a delight to have in class. Easily distracted, but she tries hard. It’s been written in all of her school report cards beneath a smattering of middling grades, so she knows it’s true.

Middle school is apparently way harder, though, which is why Mildred is laying star-fished on the kitchen floor, fingers laced and folded under her head.

She had started on the couch, but it got too hot.

The whole thing, she reflects, frowning at the water stains on ceiling, is going to be even harder since she’s starting at a brand new school. Forget grades—what if she doesn’t make any friends? Then she’ll be all alone for seven long years and it’ll be terrible.

Well.

She’ll still have her mum.

But other than her mum, she could be _all alone_ for _seven whole years_.

On the plus side, Coswald’s School for Girls seems like a pretty good school. They’d gone for an interview, just to see how Mildred might like it, and spoken to the principal. She is an old woman—older than Mildred’s mum—and she spoke to Mildred like an adult, asked her about her favourite subjects and sports and what else she was interested in, and actually listened. Mildred’s mum listens when Mildred talks, but she’s noticed that the skill is short in most other adults. When Mildred mentioned art, the principal had shown her the art classroom. It had been locked, but Mildred had stood on her tiptoes and peered through the window and saw a whole row of easels and canvases and a _kiln_. She’s never tried pottery before.

Absorbed in remembering every beautiful detail of the art classroom, Mildred almost misses the knock on the door. Which is something of a feat, because the knock is sharp, impatient, and loud. It repeats itself twice more before Mildred even stands up.

 _“Now Millie, don’t go opening the door for any strangers while I’m at work, alright luv?”_ Mildred hears her mum’s warning clear as day when she approaches the door and she doesn’t open it, but she does peek out through the spyhole to see who might be visiting the Hubble household at—she glances at her plastic Mickey Mouse watch—nine oh three in the morning.

The most stern woman Mildred has ever seen stands at the door. Dark hair pulled back into a very tight, smooth bun, she wears black from high-collared neck to booted toe and a severe frown. Mildred thinks she would be frowning too if she were wearing so much black in the middle of summer. In one hand she carries a black briefcase. Only, it isn’t really a briefcase—it looks awfully like those old doctors bags. Mildred knows what they look like because one of the doctors her mum works with still uses one, but he’s _ancient_ and he carries a stethoscope and his packed lunch in it. This woman isn’t much older than Mildred’s mum, maybe, though she looks incredibly stern and the kind of woman who might be carrying organs in the bag, or a snake, or, or,

Before she can think of another terrifying thing the woman might have in her bag, she speaks,

‘Is this the Hubble Household,’ she says, and Mildred can hear the capitalisation in her voice, ‘Building One Hundred and Six, Floor Eighteen, Apartment C?’

‘Yes,’ Mildred says.

The woman blinks. It’s hard to tell, thanks to the way the spyhole ripples, but Mildred thinks she might have looked at the doorhandle. She tilts her head to the side slowly.

‘Good day,’ she says, and Mildred is sure this time that she’s now speaking to the doorhandle. ‘My name is Professor Hardbroom,’

‘That’s an odd first name. Professor.’

Her frown deepens into a glare. ‘My first name is none of your concern,’

‘That’s even more odd,’ Mildred tells her, and she starts to grin at the way the woman—Professor Hardbroom—recoils, nose crinkling as though something foul had been waved beneath it. ‘I am here to speak with Mistress Hubble. Inform her that _Professor Hardbroom_ ,’ she enunciates her name as though challenging Mildred—or perhaps the doorknob, which she is still glaring at—to make fun of it again, ‘has come to speak with her on a matter of great import.’

‘What kind of matter?’

‘What kind of—’ Mildred guesses that the question must be the final straw, and the woman realises that the doorknob doesn’t actually have a voice message machine in it, because she turns her glare on the spyhole. ‘Ah. _I see you_ ,’ she hisses, more victorious than dangerous, but Mildred still hurries backwards.

There is something _strange_ about the woman. She can’t explain it better than a shock that had passed between them—some kind of _recognition_ —when Professor Hardbroom had locked eyes with her.

Mildred swallows hard, wills her racing heart to slow.

‘Mildred Hubble, I presume?’

Professor Hardbroom’s voice seems to slink beneath the door, through the gap where it doesn’t quite meet the floor.

Mildred takes another step back.

‘Mildred Hubble, open the door.’

‘I’m not supposed to open it to strangers.’

‘Ah. Yes. Quite.’ A pause, then. ‘Get your mother.’

Mildred hesitates. Her mother is at work, isn’t due back for another hour from her shift at the hospital, but that’s not the sort of thing she wants to tell a strange, well, _stranger_.

‘What do you want to talk to her about?’

There is a long silence, and then a sigh. ‘Very well. I shall tell you, but you must promise to behave like an adult.’

Mildred rolls her eyes. ‘Alright.’

‘I am a teacher from a very prestigious school in Scotland. I have come to talk to your mother about your attending.’

‘What’s it called?’

‘Pardon?’

‘The school, what’s its name?’ Mildred pulls her phone from her back pocket and pulls up Find, ready to search for the name. When the strange woman says nothing, Mildred takes another big step back. ‘Has it got a name, or are you just making stuff up so you can get in here and steal stuff?’ She leaves Find and pulls up her mothers contact number instead, ready to call.

‘I am certainly not _making stuff up_.’

‘Then what’s the name?’

‘This is most unusual—I would like to speak with your mother. Or any other guardian.’

‘So you _are_ making it up.’

The woman mutters something under her breath, which strikes Mildred as strange because she doesn’t seem to be a mutterer. Mildred creeps forward as quietly as she can and presses her eye to the spyhole again. She watches as the woman pulls a long, slender black stick from the sleeve of her arm and turns her back on the door, flicking it down the hall in one direction and then the other.

The oddest sensation crawls over Mildred, as though someone had put up a very heavy curtain, or stuffed cotton wool in her ears.

Turning back toward the door with an expression of sour satisfaction, Professor Hardbroom says, ‘That ought to do it, though I do not appreciate the necessity of it, Mildred Hubble.’ Her nostrils flare with clear displeasure. ‘I have come to speak with you and your mother regarding Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.’

‘Oh,’ Mildred says, the word surprised out of her.

Professor Hardbroom nods.

‘Oh,’ Mildred says again, ‘you’re mad. Okay, well, we don’t want to buy anything and I’m not going to let you in, so you can go away and I won’t have to call the landlord or the police, and you can go back to Scotland or whatever and—’

Her ramble is cut short when the chain lock on the door begins to slide, rattling in place, and pop free. Then the deadbolt flings itself open. And then, finally, the twisty lock on the doorhandle shakes and _clicks_ to open.

The door swings open at the lightest touch of the black stick to it, the hinges creaking something awful.

Professor Hardbroom is even taller and darker and sterner with the door open.

She looks like a stick insect, with long limbs and a long neck and her long fingers holding the stick with care. Mildred notices that her fingers are very pale and stained with faint splotches of ink or colour. Even fainter are the traces of tiny nicks and scars over her fingers and hands, like a chef. Her black eyes are shrewd and narrowed and Mildred wills her knees not to knock when they finish their quick assessment of the corridor and turn on her.

‘You—that’s illegal.’

‘Yes, in my world too,’ Professor Hardbroom says, softly. Mildred is tempted to think she’s being gentle, but then her eyes flash and the very corners of her lips turn upwards and Mildred understands, as she had understood there was something different about her when their eyes met the first time, that this is a very dangerous woman, with very dangerous abilities. And she is very, very alone in her house. There is a featherlight tickle behind Mildred’s eyes and then, ‘So. Your mother isn’t here, then. I suppose I will just have to wait.’

Mildred swallows her nerves, sets her chin forward, and does the only thing she can think to do.

‘Professor Hardbroom,’ she says, ‘would you like some tea?’

* * *

With Professor Hardbroom perched on the very edge of the most comfortable chair in the house, Mildred reassesses her description of the woman. She doesn’t look like a stick insect much at all, despite her long limbs and still posture. Instead, she looks a bit like a crow. All in black, with clever eyes and hands like talons and a nose only slightly too small to be called a beak.

Plus, when she sees something she doesn’t understand, she cocks her head to the side just like a bird and stares it down until she understands it, or until she’s decided it isn’t worth her attention.

‘Sugar, Professor Hardbroom?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘Oh.’ Mildred looks down at the two mugs she’s already stirred sugar into and sets about making a third. ‘Sorry.’

Professor Hardbroom flattens her lips. The reprimand is clear in her black eyes, so Mildred avoids looking over at her.

‘Is it alright if I call my mum?’

‘I hardly think she will hear you, if she is at the _hospital_ as you say she is.’

Mildred frowns. ‘Um. Okay.’ As the kettle boils, she opens her phone again and presses call. It takes a minute, and she’s uncomfortably aware of the woman sitting in the lounge, but finally her mum picks up.

‘ _Hello, Millie luv. I’m almost done with my shift—shall I pick up some-’_

‘You need to come home right away,’ Mildred interrupts.

‘ _What? What’s wrong—what’s happened?_ ’

‘There’s, um,’ Mildred looks over at Professor Hardbroom, who is watching her intently. After a moment, with a flick of her eyes that might be the adult version of a roll, she turns to look out the glass balcony doors. ‘There’s a woman here.’

‘ _You let someone in?’_ her mum asks, then hurries on. ‘ _Nevermind, nevermind, what is she doing? I’m on my way—Bill! Bill, I have to go home, there’s a proble—yes, thank you, I’ll call you later, thanks luv—Millie?’_

‘Still here.’

‘ _Thank god. Alright, what’s happening?’_ her mum asks, sounded harried. Millie can hear the fast tap of her shoes against the hospital linoleum, the _whoosh_ of automatic doors in the background.

‘Nothing’s, er, _wrong_ exactly. But there’s a woman, Professor Hardbroom. She says she’s from a school.’

Suddenly, Mildred can’t hear her mums footsteps anymore. Just the faint, nearly imperceptible sound of her breathing.

‘Mum?’

‘ _What school?_ ’

‘Mum, are you alright? You sound—’

‘ _Millie. What. School?’_

‘Er—‘ Millie looks over at Professor Hardbroom, who has stopped looking out the windows and is properly eavesdropping again. ‘What’s the name of the school again?’

‘Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.’

‘Right-o. Mum, did you hear—’

 _‘Oh dear,’_ Mildred hears her mum say, very shakily. And then, ‘ _Home, James_ ,’ she says, which doesn’t make any sense at all, except there’s an almighty _pop_ down the phone line and…

‘Mum?’

Mildred lets her phone drop from her hand. It clatters to the counter, knocking against one of the full mugs, which slops over the edge and onto the benchtop.

In the centre of the living room, clutching the horrid fuzzy key-ring she always carries on her bag, is a harried looking Julie Hubble. She gives Mildred a very quick smile before she turns on her heel and finds their guest.

‘Right. What do you want?’

Professor Hardbroom—now no longer the only stranger in Mildred’s house—stands. She smooths out the skirt of her gown with her pale, stained hands and lifts one hand to her forehead, palm outwards. She bows, slightly.

‘Well met, Mistress Hubble,’ she says, voice smooth and dark. After a moments pause, she continues, though there is a displeased note in her tone. ‘I am Professor Hardbroom, Potions Mistress at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.’

‘I didn’t ask who you were,’ Julie Hubble says, and Mildred has seen her mum angry before—like when Mildred ran off once to get icecream from the truck around the corner without telling her, or when she lied to her about her homework, or when she had used a really bad word she’d learned from Jack Tuft next door in apartment 18B—but never like this. She’s so angry it looks like her eyes are on fire and even Professor Hardbroom, who is easily the scariest person Mildred has ever met, looks taken aback. ‘I asked _what do you want?_ ’

‘Your daughter—’

‘Whoa!’ Mildred says. ‘Is this like a wicked witch stealing a first born thing? Because I think I’m a little too old to be stolen, don’t you think? I’m definitely not tasty—I’m all skin and bone, honest.’

Professor Hardbroom looks down her long nose at her. ‘Your name is on our list of _students_ ,’ she tells Mildred.

‘She’s not a witch,’ Mildred’s mum snaps. ‘I would’ve noticed. The Book is wrong.’

Now Mildred’s _mum_ is capitalising words. ‘The Book? What Book? I’m a _witch_?’

‘No!’

‘ _Yes_ ,’ Mildred’s mother and Professor Hardbroom say at the same time. ‘You are,’ Professor Hardbroom continues.

‘She won’t be going.’

‘I think,’ Professor Hardbroom says, the words slipping silkily from her, almost lazily, her dark eyes lidded with something like amusement, ‘that this may be a decision Mildred would like to be involved in.’

Mildred’s mum stiffens. She turns very slightly, like she doesn’t want her back toward the woman— _witch?_ —and meets Mildred’s eyes. The fight drains out of her and she sighs, suddenly looking very old.

‘So it is,’ she whispers. Mustering a smile, Mildred’s mum nods toward the mugs. ‘Is one of those for me, luv?’

‘Mum,’ Mildred says sternly, ignoring the question. ‘ _What_ is going _on_?’

Her mum comes into the kitchen and picks up the kettle, pours the third mug and drops a tea bag uncaringly into it. Picking up one of the sweetened mugs, she carries the tea over to Professor Hardbroom and sets it down with a harsh _clink_ on the coffee table before she sits on the couch and pats the space next to her.

‘Come on, Millie dear. It’s about time we had a talk.’

‘This seems like a family matter,’ Professor Hardbroom says. ‘I shall leave this here.’ From inside her impeccably tailored coat, she pulls an envelope. It isn’t like any envelope Mildred has ever seen before—the paper is thick and aged, and the address is hand written in green ink so dark it looks almost black. When she takes it, it’s heavy and it feels smooth to the touch.

Mildred turns it over and touches the wax seal. There is a crest pressed into it, but it’s too small for her to make out any detail.

‘Good day,’ the witch says, before turning on her heel and vanishing with a _crack_ of displaced air.

The Hubble women are quiet for a long moment.

Then, Mildred blinks a few times very quickly and turns to her mother.

‘ _What_ just happened? Who was that really? She just used _magic_ — _you_ just used magic! You teleported! How did you do that? Why are you so sure I’m not a witch? Are you a witch?’ A thought shocks Mildred, sends her rocking back onto her heels. ‘Was _dad_ a _wizard_?’ she whispers.

Her mum is already shaking her head. ‘No, no luv, neither of us had a bit of magic.’

‘Then… How come you know about all this stuff? And how come you used magic? You _teleported_. I heard you at the hospital and then you…you were _here_.’ Mildred’s head throbs. She lifts a hand to her forehead. ‘Oh wow. That’s so weird.’

‘A Portkey,’ her mum says. ‘That’s what helped me teleport.’

‘I don’t care what it’s _called_ ,’ Mildred tells her, though she kind of does, and she really wants to know all about Portkeys now, and her mum smiles a bit because she can totally tell that Mildred _does_ care. ‘I don’t understand, mum.’

Her mum hesitates. Sets down her mug and claps her hands onto her knees. She leans forward with a bracing smile. ‘It’s a bit of a long story, luv...’

Mildred jumps up, takes her mums half-empty mug. ‘I’ll make more tea.’

* * *

Julie Hubble sits on one of the high stools that looks in toward the kitchen. Propping her chin in one hand, she watches her daughter scurry around the kitchen preparing a new cup of tea and a plate of biscuits. When she slows enough for her mum to catch her eye, she gives Mildred a sympathetic smile.

‘This must have come as a terrible shock.’

‘No,’ Mildred shakes her head. She doesn't think her mum will be mad at her for lying about that. Just in case she is, though, Mildred continues, ‘She just looked like a serial killer with a bag of organs and undid all three locks with her _magic wand_. It wasn’t a shock at all.’

Her mum laughs delightedly at the description of Professor Hardbroom. ‘She does look a bit scary, doesn’t she?’

‘ _Very_.’

‘Mm.’ She accepts a new cup from Mildred and sips, hums approvingly. ‘Excellent tea, Millie.’

‘Thanks.’ Mildred hurries around the counter and hops up onto the stool next to her mother, leans in close so that she doesn’t miss even a flicker of an expression. ‘ _So_?’

Recognising Mildred isn’t about to let it drop, Julie Hubble takes a long, fortifying drink of her tea and nods. ‘Right. Magic.’ She frowns over at the fridge with the same frown she gets when she’s thinking of what she’s forgotten to put on the groceries list. ‘I never intended to tell you about all this—and I still won’t,’ she warns Mildred in a tone that says _do not argue with me_ , ‘because parts of it aren’t suited for children.’

‘I’m almost eleven, mum. I can deal with it.’

‘Mhm. Well. I’ll tell you the important parts. It began in summer when I was ten years old. I had a friend, a Muggleborn girl—’

‘Muggleborn?’

‘Someone from a non-magical family,’ her mum explains, expression troubled, and Mildred promises herself silently that she won’t ask anymore questions, because it looks like her mum is already having enough trouble as it is. ‘Her name was Audrey and one day her family got a visitor. He was very odd, as I recall. Wore a fluffy dressing gown, formal suit slacks, two bowties, a lime-green swim shirt, and a truly hideous pair of sparkling boots.’ She laughs, shakes her head. ‘I saw him go in and Audrey told me what he said afterwards. Said that she was a witch.’

 _Witch_ , Mildred mouths the word, testing it out. It sends a thrill right through her.

‘We both suspected _something_ was different about her,’ her mum continues, voice strangely distant as though she’s not quite in the room with Mildred but has sent herself back all those years. ‘When she was upset, strange things would happen. Dogs would bark up and down the street. Things went flying once—her mum said it was a freak wind, but it wasn’t. It was Audrey. When she wanted a cookie from the jar, no matter how well it was locked, she always got two.’

‘Two?’

‘One for her,’ Mildred’s mum says, and then she grins, looking very mischievous. ‘And one for me.’

‘She was a witch.’

‘And I knew about it. She went off to Hog—to _school_ —and came home with a wand and a cat that didn’t act like a cat, and frog goop and nettles and books that had moving pictures. And I had chemistry and poetry and grass stains on all my soccer shorts.’

‘You played soccer?’ Mildred interrupts. For some reason, the idea of it is nearly as surprising as the fact that magic exists.

‘I did. I was very good at it, as a matter of fact.’

‘Right.’

‘I was.’ Her mum stands and Mildred’s heart lurches.

‘I believe you! I believe you, don’t stop!’

‘I’m not stopping, luv,’ she laughs, and she takes Mildred’s hand and leads her into her bedroom. Waves her to sit on the end of the bed and disappears into the closet, stooping low to pull out a hat box. She climbs onto the bed as well, bouncing a little to make Mildred laugh, and she opens the box. Inside are two trophies—little golden girls kicking a soccer ball—and more letters than Mildred thought would be able to fit in the box. ‘Wizard space,’ her mum excuses it with a little smile.

‘ _What_?’

‘Makes it bigger than it looks.’

‘Like the TARDIS.’

‘Oh. Er, yes, I suppose so.’

‘Oh my _god_.’ Millie falls back onto the bed, accepts the pillow her mum hands over with yet another sympathetic smile.

‘It’s a bit much, is it, luv?’

‘A _bit_ ,’ Mildred agrees, voice muffled by the pillow. She pulls it down, sits bolt upright. ‘Who are the letters from?’

Her mum smiles. Lifts one from the box.

Mildred can see it is written on the same heavy paper—parchment, she remembers from her fantasy books—and the ink has bled a little into the paper, giving the letters a faded, scratchy edge.

 _Dearest Julie_ , the letter is addressed, and Mildred sits very still as she examines her mum’s smile.

‘Why do you think I’m not a witch?’ she asks after a minute.

With a sigh, her mum returns the letter to the box, and the trophies, and puts the lid back in place. She shoves the box to the side and sits more comfortably on the bed.

‘Well, you’ve never shown any accidental magic like Audrey did.’ Mildred nods. ‘But other than that…’ Her mum looks troubled and she shakes her head. ‘I don’t know. I suppose I just didn’t expect to hear it. It was just a feeling.’

Mildred nods again. She chews thoughtfully on her bottom lip. ‘I had a feeling too.’

‘Oh? Tell me about it.’

‘When Professor Hardbroom looked at me, before she even mentioned magic,’ she tells her mum, ‘it was like… It felt like I had been seeing everything… _duller_ than it is. And then I felt a, a shiver run all the way through me and it was like I could see all the colours I’d been missing out on. Blues and purples and greens and oranges and—’

‘I know the colours, Millie dear.’

‘Right,’ Mildred grins, a little sheepishly. ‘Well, anyway, if I felt that, and if magic _is_ real, and if my name is apparently in this Book of theirs, then…’

Mildred’s mum meets her eyes and she smiles, a little worriedly at first and then growing in sincerity until they’re both sitting there beaming at one another.

‘I think I’m a witch.’

‘You’re a witch,’ she agrees, and she cups Mildred’s face between her hands and leans forward until their foreheads touch. She pulls back an inch and plasters kisses to every inch of her face until Mildred complains and squirms.

‘Mum! Stop!’

‘Or what? You don’t know any hexes yet, my girl,’ she teases, and she crooks her fingers and sets about reducing Mildred to helpless laughter, tickling her to within an inch of her life.

Perhaps it was the laughter, or the new knowledge, or something else entirely, but for the first time in Mildred’s life, she felt something new surge through her as she laughs, unable to speak or even breathe, and then suddenly her mum squeaks and stops tickling, grips tightly to Mildred instead.

‘Millie,’ she whispers. ‘Open your eyes.’

She does, and when she realises what has happened, mother and daughter immediately plummet the five feet they’ve levitated back down to the bed, and land with a squeal of complaining springs and bounce in opposite directions, head over bum.

‘Ow. Mum!’ Mildred shoots up onto her feet. ‘Mum, are you okay?’

She races around the bed to find her mum shaking and she is worried until she lifts her face and sees that she’s laughing. ‘Mum?’

‘No doubt about it,’ Julie Hubble says between giggles. ‘I think you’re a witch.’


	2. In which the Hubbles visit Diagon Alley and Run Into a Spot of Trouble, But Nothing That Can’t Be Fixed By a Pot of Tea

‘Millie, luv! We’ve gotta be out of here before nine, alright?’ her mum hollers from the bathroom, the pipes shrieking in the background.

‘Okay!’ Mildred yells back. She waits to hear if her mum is going to come check on her. When it sounds like she’s giving her hair a stern talking to, and promptly gives up to try and wrestle it under control instead, Mildred relaxes.

She’s been dressed and ready for quite some time, in fact. At five in the morning, much earlier than regular Mildred—but perhaps witch Mildred is a morning person? She suspects that magic can do much stranger things than that—she had crawled out from under her quilt and dressed in the dark. Hurrying to her bookshelf, she had taken a large book from it – one that she hadn’t read in many years – and had gone to sit by her window where the dull, greyish lamplight could illuminate the pages for her. Bracing it against her knees, Mildred had begun to read.

Now, at half eight she has found the sections she was looking for and she’s ready.

//

_“On the morning of her thirteenth birthday, Jessie Jinxbright had come into her powers, which was most surprising._

_‘Most surprising,’ her father had said, moustache wriggling like a fat caterpillar on his top lip. He clicked his Pocketwatch closed and tucked it into his pocket. ‘I thought that wasn’t meant to happen until noon.’_

_‘We had noon written down,’ Jessie’s mother agrees, and she sweeps across the room and peels the moustache—which had in fact been a caterpillar—from his lip, handing over his Business Moustache instead. ‘This is most surprising,’ Jessie’s mother agrees.”_

//

Mildred laughs out loud at the passage, passes her fingers over a sketched illustration of a girl with small bolts of lightning zinging from her afro, eyes wide and delighted, and her father affixing a moustache to his lip with a bottle that reads _Moustache Glue_ , and her mother, wearing a pointed witches hat and an expression of deep pride.

Flipping through the book, Mildred returns to the page she had been looking at and she reads through it again.

//

_“On the first day of classes, her teacher—the fearsome Madam Magis Malbrook—loomed over her, with the kind of expression that told Jessie she viewed her as something unfortunate that had gotten stuck to her shoe, which she had probably spent several hours polishing the night before._

_‘Jinxbright,’ the Witch—for she was a Witch, no longer a Spark and not quite at the age or power of a Crone—called on her. ‘Show me your Light Spell.’_

_‘My Light Spell?’_

_‘Yes.’ Madam Malbrook smiled then like a shark, all rows of shining pointed teeth. Jessie wondered if the rumours about her eating students who get detention could be true._

_Jessie didn’t want to find out._

_Sitting straight in her chair, she held her hands out in front of her and screwed her eyes shut tight. With a touch of the magical energy she could feel inside her, she drew it down into her hands and said,_

_‘Flicker flame, candle light,_

_Warm and steady, fire bright._

_Magic, magic, come to me,_

_In this darkness, help me_ see _.’_

_A round of gasps made Jessie open her eyes and she smiled at the little blob of light in front of her. Her smile faded when she looked up into the face of Madam Malbrook and saw ten other balls of light sitting amongst her hair and the dark collar of her cloak. They hummed and zinged with power, nestling against her like kittens and refusing to leave her even when the Witch spoke a Counterspell._

_After a minute of unsuccessfully dispelling the Lights, the Witch stopped. She drew in a breath. Her vivid green eyes swept over the giggling class, casting them wordlessly into silence._

_Jessie slunk low in her seat._

_'Miss Jinxbright,’ the Witch spoke in a dangerous voice. ‘Detention.’_

//

Mildred winces, feeling for the girl. She shakes out of it a moment later, remembering that it is just a story.

It had always drawn her in, this book, and Mildred figures if she were a witch, and this book meant a lot to her, maybe there was something about it that called to her magic.

She returns to the section where Jessie summons the Light. Licks suddenly dry lips and lifts her hands in front of her.

‘F-flicker flame, candle light,’ she reads, voice thin and reedy in her attempt to be quiet and not draw her mothers attention. ‘Warm and steady, fire bright. Magic, magic, come to me. In this darkness, help me _see_.’

Mildred peeks open one eye. Then the other. She frowns down at her empty hands and around at the lack of light in the room.

What had she done wrong?

Returning to the book, Mildred reads over the section a few more times. The words were right, and the action, but… Her magical energy! Mildred realizes. She can’t feel it—or, she doesn’t feel any different, she thinks, than before she had known about magic.

A little more confused, maybe, but not like lightning is buzzing in her hair.

Mildred screws her face up thoughtfully. She sets the book to her side and pulls her knees up to her chest, stares at her hands.

‘Magical energy. Hmm.’

Closing her eyes and thinking about it doesn’t help. It just makes Mildred want to go to sleep. She stands and paces purposefully back and forth the length of her room instead instead, worrying at her bottom lip.

 _One. Two. Three. Four. Five._ Turn. _One. Two. Three. Four. Five._ Turn.

Magical energy.

Magical energy.

Mildred stops. Hadn’t she felt something, when she had sent her and her mum floating to the ceiling? She recalls the moment of breathless wonder, the delight that had filled her body, the energy that had made her feel like the old air-conditioning unit that hums and shakes on the wall. Could _that_ be what it was?

Mildred focuses, thinking on the buzzing hum that might be magic. She doesn’t feel it, at first, but then a weird sensation like pins and needles but in her chest and hands starts up.

‘Flicker flame, candle light. Warm and steady, fire bright.’ The tips of her fingers begin to tingle, and Mildred remembers how Jessie in her book had imagined the magic moving into her hands. She doesn’t know how to do that, exactly, but frowns deeply and spreads her fingers open so hard they start to shake. She hopes it helps. ‘Magic, magic, come to me. In this darkness, help me _see_.’

She opens her eyes as soon as she finishes the spell, searches for any sign of magical light.

Just when Mildred begins to think she’s failed again, there is a little spark. It’s so tiny that after her heart jumps, she scolds herself, thinking it’s just the glint of something shining in her room.

She looks more closely when the glint doesn’t fade.

It’s tiny—no bigger than the spark off a firefly’s bum—and it bobs in the air, an odd orange-green and flickering like a candle.

‘I DID IT!’

She claps her hands around the little spark and jumps around her room with it, laughing, until her mum yells, ‘Millie! Stop that! It’s too early!’ from the room over.

Mildred stops. Calls back, guiltily. ‘Sorry, mum!’

Opening her hands, Mildred looks down at the little spark, which has not yet faded.

‘What do I do with you?’

It flickers in place, but doesn’t speak.

‘Right, fire doesn’t talk. Or _does it_?’

Mildred stares at the flame, holding her eyes very wide and staring intently at the spark so she doesn’t miss a thing. When it begins to hurt her eyes, Mildred blinks.

‘I guess not. Worth a shot.’

Shrugging, Mildred closes her hands around it again and makes her way over to her dresser.

‘I know I’ve got something here—aha!’

A small locket lays in a little flower dish, its silver chain pooled around and over it. Oval and simple, with a delicate pattern etched into the metal, the locket is the perfect size. Mildred pulls it out, the chain rattling on the ceramic dish. Popping open the clasp, she herds the spark into it. There is just enough space within that the light sits comfortably in it when Mildred closes it. No light burns through it, and it grows warm but not hot when Mildred hands it around her neck. She opens it a fraction to check that it still burns—wondering if a lack of oxygen would work the same on a magically conjured flame—and, seeing that it does, Mildred beams with pride.

Her first magic. _Purposeful_ magic. She truly, _truly_ is a Witch—and she has _proof_.

* * *

_‘MUM!’_

‘Coming!’

‘Mum, we are going to be _late!_ ’

‘I’m _coming_ ,’ she yells again, even as she chases down her missing shoes.

Mildred sighs. Stepping out into the hall, she prepares a Hubble Huff—crossed arms, a disapproving and disappointed grown—and barely notices out of the corner of her eye when a face appears, peering at her from the door of the apartment over.

‘Psst!’

‘Morning, Sharma.’

‘Morning, Hubble. Wanna see my toad?’

Mildred blinks. Looking into her apartment, she sees her mum clutching at her hair—‘Almost there, Millie!’ she calls, which means Mildred has at least five more minutes—and she turns back to the boy.

‘Sure. I’d love that.’

Her neighbour—Jai Sharma, one year older than her and a full ten centimetres shorter—flashes a bright smile and disappears back into his apartment. After a moment, the sound of his bare feet on the floor tells her he’s coming back and he flings the door open and races out to meet her halfway down the hall, bouncing in place with the biggest and fattest toad in his hands Mildred has ever seen.

Mildred drops her huff.

She hurries toward him, eyes wide. ‘It’s _enormous!_ ’

‘I know!’

‘And brown!’

‘I know!’

‘Look at its _warts_!’

‘I _know!_ ’ he laughs, delighted. ‘Isn’t she great?’

‘It’s _brilliant_!’

Jai strokes a finger down the toads weird, bumpy head and he nods quickly when Mildred asks if she can too.

‘Her name is Wartessa,’ he tells her, and Mildred laughs.

The toad feels smooth but not slimy like she thought it would. It fixes her with its two big bulging yellow eyes and swells in Jai’s hands, letting out a huge, displeased croak and struggles in Jai’s hands, its hands—paws? toes? feet? Mildred isn’t sure what they’re called—slapping on his.

‘Sorry,’ Jai says. ‘She’s never done this before. She might be hungry—do you want to see me feed her?’ The toad struggles again, more insistently and Jai’s face crumples into a frown. ‘I should put her away.’

‘Yeah. It’s alright—I’m going shopping with Mum. I’ll come look at her later?’

‘Millie! Let’s go,’ she hears from behind her.

‘Yeah, definitely!’ Jai bounces in place a few times and then he deftly moves the toad into one hand so he can wave goodbye when Mildred runs to join her mum. ‘Have fun! You can feed Wartessa tonight, if you want!’

Mildred stops where the corridor turns away toward the lift. Jai waves again, very enthusiastically from the shoulder. She grins when Wartessa gives another croak and tries to jump; Jai lurches to catch her, holds her with both hands again.

‘See you tonight!’ Mildred promises, waving back, and she rushes to jump into the lift when her mum calls her, holding the doors for her.

‘How is Jai?’ her mum asks, looking through her handbag.

‘Good. He has a toad now.’

‘Oh, that’s nice.’

‘She’s _huge_ ,’ Mildred tells her, holding her hands far apart. The truth of the toads size is less important, she thinks, than the fact that it seemed to be enormous. ‘Her name is Wartessa—Wart for short—and she’s not at all slimy.’

Her mum listens to her patiently, nodding, and she pulls out a tin of mints and a thing of wet wipes, handing the wipes over.

‘If you touched the toad, you wipe your hands first,’ she tells Mildred. ‘Then you get a mint.’

Mildred takes the wipe and continues talking. She talks as they walk, and slip through the turnstiles onto the Tube platform, as they take the Tube to their next stop, as they climb the stairs and avoid a stain that smells terribly of urine, all the way out the turnstiles and past a strawberry stand and down the street.

When she has exhausted the topic of Jai and toads—and his collection of newts, frogs, and a salamander she thinks he had called a mudpuppy, which he hasn’t got but he’s been doing a lot of research about—Mildred pauses, sucks in a deep breath, and asks,

‘Where are we going, then?’

‘To get your school things.’

‘For Hog—’

‘Mildred.’ Her mum’s sharp tone makes her stop, and Mildred follows her when she steps off to the side. ‘Remember what I said? You never say the name in public.’

Mildred nods, sets her face into understanding. ‘Yes, mum.’

‘Alright. Now—we are looking for a pub.’

She frowns. ‘We just had breakfast.’

‘It’s not that sort of pub, luv,’ her mum laughs. ‘It’s around here somewhere. Keep a sharp eye out.’

Mildred frowns. They’re on Charing Cross Road and she can see a handsome menswear shop, a grocery shop, a pub—which she points out only for her mum to shake her head and say ‘Not that pub, dear,’—a sandwich place, a pretty green bookstore, a sweetshop, another pub that earns the same reaction, another bookstore but this one is blue, and she sighs.

‘Do you know what it’s called?’

‘Er,’ her mum searches in her bag again. ‘No, I seem to have lost the paper. But it’s—Leaky something. Leaking Tap. Leaky Tap. Leaky – ’

‘Cauldron?’

‘That’s it!’ Her mum smiles down at her. ‘How did you know? A wit— _watch_ thing?’

‘I don’t think that’s how it works,’ Mildred tells her mum. ‘It’s right there.’

Mildred points, and she watches as her mum’s eyes skate right over the pub. It’s strange, because it’s a big, black, rather odd looking building nestled between a lemon yellow pastry shop and yet another bookshop. While she’s watching, Mildred sees a strange bird—an eagle?—soar down from the sky.

Anyone else on the street that sees it suddenly looks away, disinterested, and hurries on about their day.

 _Strange_ , Mildred thinks, and watches more closely.

The maybe-eagle lands lightly in front of the door to the pub. It hops, tosses its head, gives its brown striped blueish-white wings a good shake, and begins to grow rapidly, colours and shape contorting until it takes the form of a woman. Wild auburn hair is braided in sections and she wears a deep green cloak. It’s hard to see from this distance but Mildred thinks that her boots are caked with red mud. The woman looks back over her shoulder to check that no one had seen her and Mildred starts, drawing her attention and vivid, piercing gold eyes.

The woman winks, shoots Mildred a dimpled grin, and steps into the pub.

‘Mum!’ Mildred tugs on her mum’s sleeve. ‘Did you see that?’

‘Hmm? See what?’ Mildred sighs, seeing how scattered her mum looks, like she’s wondering if she left the kettle on. ‘I’m _sure_ it was around here somewhere.’

‘I found it,’ Mildred tells her again. ‘And a woman who was an eagle. Or a hawk. I don’t know.’

‘A hawk?’ Mildred’s mum looks down at her. ‘That’s interesting. Maybe you could fly home on the weekends, if you learned that.’

Mildred grins. ‘I’ll make it my first priority.’

‘Good. Now—how _did_ Mrs Blake find that pub?’

Mildred throws her head back, stares up at the grey sky.

‘Ah! Take my hand, Millie, there’s a dear—oh it’s right there, see?’ Her mum points right ahead, smiles down at her with a slight frown. ‘You should’ve said something.’

‘I did. Twice.’

‘Did you?’

‘ _Yes_.’

Mildred’s mum purses her lips thoughtfully. ‘I suppose…whatever is stopping me from seeing the pub was stopping me from hearing about it too,’ she suggests. She looks over at it and grimaces. ‘It’s a bit dirty’ she says.

‘Mum.’

‘The paint is peeling off the door!’

‘Only magical people can see it, probably,’ Mildred reminds her.

‘Oh yes well, that’s enough isn’t it? A lick of paint wouldn’t hurt.’ Her eyes stray over the building and Mildred turns to look at it like her mum would. Like a woman who sterilizes the cutlery once a month. Who bought a second hand shampoo carpet cleaner because she read about the bacteria that could be living in their carpets. Who carries a small arsenal of sanitizer and her first aid kit at all times.

Mildred looks at the pub, more than just the silver words over the building that read _The Leaky Cauldron_.

It’s distinctly lopsided, so completely that Mildred suspects it was built like that. The black paint is peeling off the door and the silver doorknob is tarnished, spotted with age. There’s a big bite mark chunk taken out of the hanging sign – crooked, dangling from only one hinge and shaped like a boiling cauldron. The windows are dark and coated in dust and looks as though they haven’t seen a cleaning cloth in the better part of a century. A single, mostly melted candle sits inside a smoked-glass lantern next to the door.

‘It’s brilliant,’ Mildred breathes, because despite all of that there is something about it that calls to her, makes her feel like she’s drunk three energy drinks in a row but without the urge to puke.

Shifting her grip on her mum’s hand, Mildred begins to pull her toward the building.

They’re almost there when she hears what her mum is mumbling. ‘A spot of hot water and soap wouldn’t go astray either. Anywhere it landed, it looks like it needs it. But come on, Julie Hubble, you can do this.’

Mildred stops. ‘Mum.’

‘Hmm? Oh, I won’t embarrass you,’

‘Mum,’ she says again, tugs at her hand, and finally her mum looks at her. ‘I can go by myself if you’re…if you don’t want to go in.’

‘Oh Millie, no.’

‘Really, it’s no problem.’

‘ _Millie,_ ’ she says, crouching down. With the hand not held in Mildred’s, her mum chucks a crooked finger under her chin and gives her a little smile. ‘A bit of dirt isn’t going to stop me from doing this with you.’ She begins to straighten up but Mildred takes her other hand and holds her in place.

‘I’m serious, mum. It’s not the dirt—it’s all of this. It makes you nervous.’

Something unfamiliar sparks in her mum’s eyes.

Glancing about them, Mildred’s mum shoos her into a side-street and sits Mildred on a low stone bench.

‘Mille,’ she sighs.

‘I can get everything on the list. I’m nice, polite, and Uncle Ajay taught me how to drive a price down—’

‘That’s _wonderful_ ,’ she interrupts, ‘but stop. I’m not letting you do this big, amazing, wonderful, exciting, _magical_ ,’ she laughs, a little shake of her head making her blonde curls bounce cheerily, ‘and yet— _scary_ —thing all on your own. I just won’t! I’m your mum.’ She squeezes Mildred’s hands, scrunches her nose up with an accompanying smile. ‘This is going to be a really big part of your life. A part I can’t help you with.’ Her smile turns a little sad and she lifts one hand to stroke Mildred’s cheek. ‘My Millie… I won’t be able to help you with… your potions projects,’ she suggests hesitantly. ‘Or…flying. I can’t help with that. All these things you’ll need to learn and,’ she presses their joined hand to her chest, over her heart, ‘oh, Millie, it breaks my heart a little. It really does.’

‘Mum,’ Mildred whispers. ‘I didn’t know.’

‘But!’ Her mum gathers herself up with a little effort, forces a much wider smile. It looks awkward for a second but then it _fills_ with love. ‘That means you need to know that everything I _can_ do, I _will_. I’ll listen to your spells and proofread your essays and check your spelling and help you find things in your books. I’ll take you into grimy magical pubs to get your school stuff. And I’ll figure out how to send owl mail, and learn all the names of your teachers so I can give them a piece of my mind when you get into a scrape. All right?’

Mildred sniffles, nods. ‘Yeah.’

‘Sound good?’

‘Sounds good.’

‘All right. Now.’ Her mum stands, kisses Mildred on the top of her head. ‘Let’s go. We don’t want to keep our guide waiting.’

Mildred’s eyes widen. She jumps to her feet. ‘Are we late? For _Professor Hardbroom?_ ’ _The scariest person ever_ , she thinks but doesn’t say.

‘Heavens no. I told you we had to be there at nine so we’d leave on time—we’re early, actually.’

‘That’s…’

‘Genius. I know. Also, the letter I got said Professor Hardbroom wouldn’t be coming. She’s got _responsibilities_ ,’ Mildred’s mum says. ‘I know what that’s code for.’

‘What?’

‘Adult code for _I don’t want to_.’

‘Oh.’ Mildred shrugs. ‘Who is it then?’

* * *

The interior of the pub is a little nicer than the exterior had hinted at.

A fire burns bright and hot on each side of the long pub, which is not packed to the rafters but also rather busy for so early on a weekday morning. A long, gleaming wooden bar runs the whole length of the right side of the room, some thirty feet long, and behind it, a rickety wall of bottles and glasses rises up to the ceiling. A very old man who Mildred thinks looks like a dried up hunk of ear-wax totters around behind the bar, spry for his age. He has a shock of white hair over each eye and sprouting from his ears, the rest of his head completely bald. There’s a filthy cloth flung over his right shoulder, and Mildred watches as he flicks a stick down the bar, glasses leaping into action. He yanks a lever as the glass passes underneath and hands off a series of drinks to the crowd gathered round. Some normal looking mugs of frothing beers, but also a sparkling drink that pops and bangs and rattles in the glass and something that makes a disgusting sucking noise as it leaves the tap, dark brown and thick as tar, and sits like a ball at the bottom of the glass. The last drink goes to a very tall, very gaunt man who, despite looking incredibly tired, laughs and drinks with his friends.

Mildred thinks she catches a glimpse of a very long, thin tooth when he smiles.

‘Wotcher!’ A loud voice calls from very close to them. ‘Are you the Hubble’s, then?’

A rather sporty, short woman with dark skin and dark hair tied back in a twist greets them, smiling. Mildred finds herself smiling back just as enthusiastically, the woman’s energy filling the space around her.

‘Yes!’ Mildred holds out her hand and, looking slightly bemused, the woman takes it. ‘I’m Mildred! Mildred Hubble.’ She shakes firmly.

‘Er, right. Well met, Mildred. I’m Professor Drill. You can call me Dimity,’ she tells Mildred’s mum. She frowns playfully at Mildred, the frown ruined by a smile that sneaks the corners of her lips upwards. ‘ _You_ can call me Professor, ma’am, or Professor Drill.’

‘Yes, Professor Drill,’ Mildred says promptly, grin growing even wider.

‘Excellent!’ The professor claps her hands, rubs them together eagerly. ‘This is your first time in Magical London, is that right?’

‘Yes,’ Mildred says again, feeling a bit like the parrot she can see wobbling on a shoulder in the far corner, over the sea of heads.

‘Good, good. Lots to see, lots to get—you have your list? Ah!’ She gives Mildred two thumbs up when she produces the letter from her jacket pocket. ‘Atta girl! All we need now is a little money and a good guide.’

‘Pity they’re stuck with you then, isn’t it, Drill?’

Rather than frown, or snap back at the woman who calls over from where she leans against the bar, Drill beams. ‘Hubble’s, this is my wife—Belladonna Bluebell.’

Mildred can’t help but laugh.

Embarrassed, she covers her mouth with both hands. ‘I’m sorry,’ she squeaks, the women turning their eyes on her. ‘I just—she made fun of you—but you’re married! It was funny.’

The lady introduced as Belladonna hops down off her stool. She wanders over—a man about to cross her path stops, stumbles backwards with a quick apology even when his drink slops over his hand—and she wraps an arm around her wife’s waist.

‘This is the Hubble girl, then? Well met.’ Belladonna—a very beautiful woman with much freckled brown skin and dark hair, almost purple where it catches the light, and a round face that dimples sweetly when she smiles, her black eyes glinting with laughter—lifts a hand to her forehead and she bows slightly.

‘Hey—Professor Hardbroom did that too!’

A hush ripples out over the pub and many patron look about nervously at the mention of the Witch.

Belladonna Bluebell nods. ‘It’s a courteous greeting in magical circles.’

‘Oh!’ Mildred hurries to place her hand on her forehead. It’s clammy with nervous sweat and feels unpleasantly cool against her face, flushed with embarrassment and the heat of the roaring fire. She hides her grimace by bowing. ‘Well met!’ she says to both witches, and when she drops her hand, she tries to discreetly wipe it on her jeans.

‘Righto’ Professor Drill nods. ‘Are you ready to go? I think we’re going to have a _great_ day,’ she says, and Mildred feels her grin grow again. The professor’s optimism is jarring, but incredibly welcome.

‘I’m ready.’ Mildred turns to her mum. ‘Mum?’

‘I’m ready,’ she says as well, though with rather less confidence. Her hand snakes down to take Mildred’s; it’s sweaty too, and Mildred smiles up at her, gives it a reassuring squeeze. ‘Lead the way, Professor Drill.’

‘Through here, then.’

As the Professor leads them out through the pub to the courtyard out back—out into a space that meets an alley, rubbish sitting in out-dated metal garbage cans, flies fluttering about the piles, and none of it smelling as strong as it ought to, not even close—Mildred asks her every question that comes into her mind.

‘What do you teach, Professor Drill? Is it fun? Are you at Hogwarts too? Have you been there long? _Are_ there other schools? What kind of magic is your favourite? Is your wife a teacher too? She’s funny and beautiful, have you been married long? Is that normal? I mean, _common_?’ she corrects herself, blushing. ‘It’s only just been made legal in normal—um— _non-magical_ England, you see. So is it legal in the magical world, or did you have to wait? Where do we get money from? Where do I buy a wand? Did you ever do accidental magic? Do you have a wand?’

Professor Drill comes to a stop at the brick wall at the far end of the alley. She doesn’t have a strained or distressed look like Mildred’s teachers often do when she asks questions all in a rush like that—nor, Mildred notes with relief, does she look upset by any of the probably deeply personal questions. She even laughs when Mildred’s mum hisses _‘Mildred_!’ at her, in her _apologise right now young lady_ voice.

‘It’s all right, Missus Hubble, curiosity is good in a witch. I’m sure I’ll have time to answer all your questions,’ she tells Mildred, ‘but for now… I do have a wand.’ With a flick of her wrist, a short, stout wand appears in Professor Drill’s hand. It isn’t black, like Professor Hardbroom’s wand, nor does it have the same slender, crooked quality to it as though it had been freshly broken from a tree. It’s quite lovely, actually—made of a honey-brown wood, it has a knobbled, slightly twisted texture for about a third of length of the wand, what Mildred assumes is the handle, where Professor Drill holds it in a loose grip, and it is smooth and straight from there.

‘Wow.’

‘Like that?’ Drill grins. ‘Check this out.’

She turns to the brick wall and taps some of the bricks.

One. Two. Three.

The first brick she tapped…wriggles. Then jiggles. A puff of grey dust drifts down from around it. Then, the second brick begins to shift, and then the entire wall groans and grinds against itself and a small hole appears in the centre, in front of Professor Drill, growing larger and larger. It only takes half a minute for it all to stop and the dust settles, revealing an archway and beyond it, the most fantastic street Mildred has ever seen.

Mildred doesn’t notice both professor’s taking a step back, or their murmur of ‘ _Give her a second_ ,’ they advice her mum. She’s far too absorbed in the, the _magic_ of the street that extends downwards from the archway.

The first thing she notices is the sound.

It hits her like a bubble bursting, the roar rushing in to fill her ears.

Chatter and squawks and growls of animals, people yelling and calling to one another, complaints and laughter and here and there music drifts out from the shopfronts into the street.

A matronly woman wearing a fluttering butterfly hairpin that looks seconds from taking off walks past her at a quick pace, a lanky boy of about sixteen at her heels.

‘—surely not. The _entire_ collection?’

‘That’s what the list says – ’

‘Oh _give_ _me that_ , Jules. This is ridiculous, just share with your brother.’

‘But the list says a set _each_ , Ma—’

They disappear into a side alley and Mildred’s eyes dart to a short, chubby man with a magnificent moustache who calls from his window. ‘Bowl o’ fish eyes! Pound fer nine Sickles, ha’pound for five! Bowl o’ fish eyes—’

 _‘GET_ the Daily Prophet here!’ a little girl calls, standing on an overturned crate. Over her head, she holds a much crinkled newspaper. A large photo takes up a full half of the front fold, in stark black and white. And, Mildred notes, the photo _moves._ ‘ _GET_ the Daily here! Three Knuts for yesterday’s paper! Bundle o’ trash it is, great fer putting in yer birdcage after a laff! What a bargain! _GET_ the Daily Prophet!’

A woman knocks into Mildred and sneers down at her, watery green eyes narrowed with severe distaste. She turns back to her companion with a sniff. ‘Children these days.’ Then, ‘What was I saying?’

‘Cackle.’

‘Oh _yes_ ,’ she says, voice drenched with a horrid relish. ‘I don’t know _what_ Headmistress Cackle was _thinking_ , allowing that monst—‘

Mildred rolls her eyes, rubs at her shoulder. She takes another step further into the street. A flash of movement catches her attention—a crowd of children gathered about a gleaming window, a handsome young woman wearing a leather apron over her crisp white shirt, the sleeves rolled to her elbows, watching over them with a welcoming smile.

‘Have you seen the new—‘

‘That’s a _Nimbus_.’

‘Harry Potter rode one in 19—’

‘Pah! I got the _Sunburst 500_ myself, it’s loads better than some bundle of twig—’

Everywhere Mildred turns, there is a new sight, a new smell. Crystal balls set out on gloriously patterned cloths. Buckets of terrible, disgusting, _fascinating_ ingredients. Second hand books piled in stacks taller than Mildred, which float obligingly apart when someone reaches for a tome in the middle of the stack. Mildred is looking at the titles— _Strange Fungi You Should Never Touch; Presents For The Unimaginative Wizard; Broom Maintenance 101_ —when the stack explodes around her.

She pulls her hands back, afraid that _she_ caused it, when she sees what has happened.

An escaped bird has flown straight through the pile—the books scattered and, like frightened pigeons, they come slowly back together only moment later. Faster when a harried looking woman with her wand tucked behind her ear comes out and calls for them.

‘Come here, you silly books. It was just a bird. Come on, come back now lovelies,’ she coos and calls, crooking her fingers toward a few frightened books until they return to the stack.

Seeing the woman has the books well in hand, Mildred hurries to examine the bird.

The poor thing is young, despite the impressive size, and it is half-hooded with what Mildred thinks is a falconers hood. The bird is caught in the string, which is half wrapped about a claw and wing, keeping the wing pinned to its side.

‘Here now, stop struggling,’ Mildred says to the bird. It caws and struggles more. ‘You’re scared aren’t you, silly thing? It’s alright, it’s just a string. You could eat it for breakfast, you big brute,’ she continues, eyeing the sharp talons and beak warily. ‘I don’t reckon you should, on account of it’s string and not good for you like a tasty worm or meat.’ Mildred kneels down and she reaches out to disentangle the crow. She recoils when it slashes at her, then steadies her hand and tries again. ‘Here now, stop that. I’m trying to help,’ she tells it sternly, like she’s heard her mum do when a patient isn’t cooperating. ‘I know you’re scared but it won’t get better unless I help you. All I’m going to do is hold this string and bring it up and around and—there!’

Mildred sits back with a nod, the string bundled in her hand and the bird freed. ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’

The crow glares at her. Tests its freed wing. Then, with a quick beat of its wings that buffets all the mud and dirt around it into the air, it hops up onto its feet. Tilts its head to one side, hops, caws.

‘Go on, then,’ Mildred says. ‘You’re fine, you’re free.’

It caws again.

She frowns. ‘Are you saying thank you?’ The bird hops once. ‘Oh. You’re welcome. Well met.’ She holds a hand to her forehead, looks up when she hears her mum laugh. Sheepishly, Mildred climbs to her feet, shrugs when her mum looks despairingly at the mud soaked into her knees and the shins of her jeans, the tops of her sneakers.

‘He needed help,’ Mildred explains weakly.

‘You did very well, Millie. We should hurry on, though. Visit the bank.’

‘The bank?’ Mildred crinkles her nose. After seeing a magic bookstore and a crow and a shop full of crystals, the bank sounds terribly boring. She sighs. ‘Okay.’

* * *

Professor Drill and her wife—who is indeed a professor, ‘Of Herbology. Plants and such. I’ve a bit of an affinity, a green thumb, I guess’—point out dozens of stores and items on their walk to the bank, which they also point out when it becomes visible.

It looms, white and grand and shining in the morning sun, all marble and gold. Stately, like, with tall, fat columns and guards in red livery at the door.

‘There’s Tinsley’s Apothecary—good price for the first years ingredients, that one. Might be exactly the right place to go. She does a set, doesn’t she?’

‘Pre-packaged cases. Bit on the pricey side, but the students get to keep the case,’ Professor Bluebell says. ‘I’m guessing you’ve never been in an apothecary,’ she laughs when Mildred’s nose crinkles as they pass.

She catches a whiff of a hundred plant smells all mixed together—spicy and sweet and sharp mixed with low and earthy and all of it layered with the unmistakable smell of manure.

‘No,’ Mildred agrees, pinching her nose. ‘Never.’

It looks amazing, though—bundles of plants hang from the ceiling, and bottles and jars ranging from as small as Mildred’s thumb to bigger than her head are set on the shelves. Her attention is only dragged away from it because her mum ushers her along. And because the next shop—a candy store—and the next—more books, more than Mildred has ever seen before—and the next— _broomsticks_ —are all so fascinating as well.

Finally, they make it to the bank.

Mildred is distracted by a cart that passes by. It’s painted midnight blue and has stars scattered over it, which flicker in and out of view, and she tears herself away from it with great reluctance and jogs up the stairs after the adults.

‘Now Mildred, Julie,’ Professor Drill says in a low whisper, keeping them a short distance from the bank. ‘This is a goblin bank.’

 _Goblin?_ Mildred mouths.

‘Yes. Probably should’ve mention that earlier. They’re all right—a bit scary. Nice enough, though. Er, well,’ she tilts her head from side to side. ‘They’re not very nice. But they’re truly _excellent_ at their jobs.’

‘Running the bank.’

‘The biggest and best bank in the magical world. Gringott’s.’

‘Oh,’ Mildred’s mum says. ‘How nice.’

‘I think you should inquire about setting up an account here,’ Professor Drill says, and Mildred looks away, bored. ‘We’ll be getting money from the scholarship fund—it’s not a lot but it’s exactly enough to cover everything she’ll need for first year. Plus a little extra for candy and whatnot –’

More interesting than that conversation are the strange letters she sees crawling up and around the column to her left.

She takes one step out and away from the three adults; when they don’t appear to notice, Mildred takes another, and then another until she’s next to the column. The writing on it is miniscule and shallow, scratched into the marble. She wouldn’t have noticed it at all except that the light had caught something shining in the vein that runs through the stone. Mildred leans in until she’s nose to surface with the column, examines one batch of…letters? Shapes? She lifts a hand to trace them—

‘ _Don’t touch_.’

The harsh voice speaks right into her ear and Mildred jerks away from it, pulls to the side.

‘I’m sorry! I was just—oh!’

In front of her, shorter than her but with an aged and wrinkled face, broad in the shoulders and chest, is a very strange looking person. Their skin is rough, almost pebbled, a dull grey like stone. Bony protrusions—like tiny little horns—jut out from where Mildred is accustomed to seeing eyebrows, and in a patch over their forehead. The hand that clutches the gold, wicked spear is big, with five stout fingers and a thumb. Mildred spots pointed teeth and pointed ears that swivel toward her. Strangest of all, however, are the eyes. A strong, hairless brow sits over them, but Mildred can still make out in the bright morning light two eyes with large, orange irises and pupils slitted like a cat.

Remembering herself, Mildred puts her hand to her forehead and bows. ‘Well met!’

Only silence greets her.

Mildred is afraid that she’s done it wrong, but then they speak again.

‘Well met,’ they say. ‘Don’t touch the runes.’

‘Um. The letters?’

‘Runes.’

Mildred takes that as a yes. ‘Would they break?’ she asks, standing out of her bow.

The person scoffs, lips twisting to show off their very sharp teeth. ‘No. Goblin wards don’t _break_.’

‘Wards?’

The goblin—for Mildred is now certain that they are a goblin—peers up at her. ‘Muggleborn,’ they say. ‘Yes?’

‘Yes. How did you know?’

‘You don’t know anything. And ask stupid questions.’

Mildred feels her face burn. ‘That might be true,’ she says, ‘but it’s rude of you to say it.’

The goblin bares their teeth and makes a harsh sound that reminds Mildred of the bricks shifting to let her into Diagon Alley. She thinks they might be laughing.

Mildred grins. ‘I’m Mildred. Mildred Hubble. What’s your name?’

The goblin is silent for a moment. Then, they make another grating sound that mixes with a hint of whistle. It’s pretty, in an eerie and totally strange way.

‘Is that your name?’ Mildred frowns thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think I can make those sounds. But it sounds brilliant.’

‘Your human teeth would break if you tried,’ the goblin tells her, which Mildred takes to mean they don’t mind that she doesn’t try. ‘You may call me Gaharahath.’

‘Gaharahath,’ Mildred says, repeating it with minor corrections until Gaharahath nods.

Mildred looks back over her shoulder to the still talking adults. Returning to Gaharahath, she asks, ‘So, what are runes? And wards?’

The goblin slumps. ‘By Kroth, you really don’t know anything.

‘Nope,’ Mildred agrees, popping the ‘p’ sound with good cheer. ‘And you’re the first magical person I’ve met—well, besides the professors, but they’re going to be my teachers, so they don’t count as friends.’

Gaharahath chuckles. Maybe. Mildred thinks they do; it sounds like they’re crunching glass low in their throat. ‘Teachers are not friends. My mentor Zhetharll once bisected me.’

‘Bi…sected? Like…’ Mildred gulps.

‘Cut in two. Yes.’

‘Oh.’ Mildred isn’t quite sure what to say about that. ‘That…sucks?’

A broad smile curls over Gaharahath’s face. ‘Your teachers do not use swords. You will most likely not be bisected.’

‘Oh. Brilliant. I don’t know what I would do if they did. Have to think of something, I reckon.’

‘Hope a Healer is close by.’

‘Healer?’ Aware it is no doubt a silly question, but also that Gaharahath doesn’t truly seem to mind, Mildred asks, ‘Is that like a doctor?’

‘Doc-tor,’ the gobin repeats. It stands very solidly still for a moment then asks, a little mistrustfully, ‘What is this…doc-tor?’

Mildred grins. It’s very nice to know that, while she might not know everything—or anything—about this new world, at least Gaharahath doesn’t seem to know everything about _her_ world.

‘They’re great! They’re people who help sick people get better. If they’ve got a disease or break an arm or get stabbed or anything like that.’

‘Without magic?’

Mildred nods. ‘They use medicine. And sometimes they do surgeries and cut people open so they can fix what’s wrong on the inside and then they sew them back up.’ Gaharahath fixes her with a burning glare as though they don’t believe she could be telling the truth. ‘I _swear_ it,’ she says, nodding. ‘My Uncle Ajay had his heart replaced. I saw the scar and everything!’

Though Mildred is not and could not possibly be aware of how momentous an occasion it is, she is then witness to something no witch or wizard has ever seen—a goblin flinching.

Gaharahath takes a step back, their eyes wide. ‘Cut them open?’

Mildred nods.

‘All Muggles do this?’

‘No, just doctors. And not even all doctors—oh, you mean, have surgery?’ They nod. ‘Mm…I think some people don’t. Because they’re scared, maybe, or because it’s against their religion?’ Mildred frowns. ‘I’m not sure. But I’ve had surgery! I broke my arm really bad,’ she tells the goblin, and she starts to roll up the sleeve of her jacket. ‘They had to put screws in, see?’ Mildred holds out her left arm, the sleeve cuffed to her elbow, and she shows off the still pink and glossy scar.

Gaharahath regards the scar with great interest and solemnity before bowing their head. They reach up with the hand not holding the spear and touch their face, beneath their left eye, rumbling something in their foreign tongue that sounds like two stones clacking together. Then, ‘I see it,’ Gaharahath says.

Mildred shivers despite the warm morning.

She’s about to ask what that was all about when she hears her mum calling her name.

‘Um. Do you know what the goodbye i-‘

‘It is well met.’

‘Oh. Like _ciao_.’

Garaharath nods.

Mildred smiles. For all the strangeness of the goblin, they really have been very nice. ‘Well met! Thank you for talking with me,’ she says, very genuinely.

‘Well met, Mildred Hubble.’ Garaharath smiles a sharp smile. As she hurries away, the goblin calls after her, almost mockingly. ‘A word of warning—do not touch anything in the bank that isn’t yours.’

Mildred turns, walks backwards with a grin. She tucks her hands behind her back as if to say _see? See how well I can not touch things?_

Garaharath shakes their head, laughs that rough laugh again.

Gringott’s is the largest building Mildred thinks she’s ever stepped into. Everything is made of white marble veined with grey, and the ceiling soars high above her. It’s all edged in gold— _real_ gold, she’s pretty sure—and everyone human is dressed in long, flowing robes of every colour imaginable. Some more than one. Many with stars embroidered on them, or stripes.

One short, scarred woman is wearing a heavy robe of deep red, nearly brown, with two crossed swords embroidered onto the back of it. Mildred is staring at her, watching her march from the bank—her boots are sensible and black and made of a strange leather that looks almost like pebbles, and a knife hangs at her belt, which Mildred has never seen before—when Professor Drill taps her on the shoulder and nods for her to follow deeper into the bank.

A goblin leads the way, much shorter and thinner than the goblin Mildred had met outside. This one wears a handsome brown shirt edged with gold. Mildred recognises from her books as a _tunic_ —all the goblins are wearing them, heavy fabric shirts that hang down to their knees, belted at the waists. The heavy fabric mostly disguises the strange bony shoulders, like the goblin has an extra shoulder – or elbow? Mildred isn’t sure – only a short length down their arm from the first pair. This goblin has similar pointed ears as Garaharath, but its head – unhelmed – is completely smooth. The protrusions, Mildred sees when the goblin turns to wave them faster, jab out from high cheekbones and curve up toward their temples and over the ear where the arm of a pair of glasses would sit, and down along their pointed chin.

Professor Drill is the only one to take her into the bank proper. Professor Bluebell stays with Mildred’s mum, takes her over to a very tall desk with a very short goblin perched behind it—last Mildred sees, her mum is being handed a teetering pile of papers, and then Mildred is being lead around a pillar that blocks her view.

//

‘Right then!’ Professor Drill says, looking a little green after the cart ride, which Mildred had thought wasn’t quite as fast as the rollercoaster she’d been on when they’d visited Dreamland with the Sharma’s in June.

‘Mum! Mum! There are piles of gold coins! Real gold like a treasure trove! It was _exactly_ like walking into Ali Baba’s cave!’

Mildred’s mum rouses herself from where she is reading through a strange, moving pamphlet. ‘Was it now?’

‘And the cart went around and around and upside down and through a waterfall that wasn’t wet and it was like a rollercoaster only _better_ because I could see all the pillars and stalagmites and there were these _creatures_ and all these goblins and they were carrying these spooky lanterns only they weren’t carrying them because they were _floating_ and our guide – oh!’ Mildred spins, grins widely at the bored looking goblin making for their seat again. ‘Thank you! That was brilliant!’

The goblin looks surprised. Mildred thinks so, anyway. Hard to tell. The goblin’s large and pointed ears twitch and they nod finally.

‘Keep your gold safe,’ they grunt.

‘Oh, I will! Thank you for listening to all my questions!’

The goblin’s ears twitch outwards this time before settling. The comment pulls a crackle-glass laugh from them. ‘May you find answers to those I could not answer.’

Mildred bows, as she has seen several robed people do, hand to her forehead. ‘Well met. May you find…um…’

‘The customary farewell is _May you find good fortune_.’

Mildred grins. ‘Like luck _and_ gold. I like that heaps. Okay—May you and Gringott’s find good fortune!’ she says, as sincerely as she can, and she feels a burst of warmth run through her from the top of her head to her feet.

‘Mildred!’

She looks to where her mum is waiting, Professor Drill at her side looking less ill. A little bit less ill, anyway.

‘Coming!’

The quartet leave the bank and find a quiet spot to examine the list.

‘Normally, I’d suggest we split up. Hit each store, get what we need, and scram.’ Professor Drill says like she’s reciting a game plan. ‘But I reckon you’d like to see everything, right?’

‘I don’t want to be any trouble…’

‘Nonsense! We cleared our day for this,’ Professor Drill tells her, seeming shocked that it could be a bother at all. ‘What do you think, love? Trunk first?’

‘Clever. You can put everything into it as we shop. I knew I married you for a reason.’

‘Not the fame? The good looks?’ Professor Drill sighs, eyes bright as she grins at her wife. ‘Right! Let’s get on with it then!’

* * *

She has her trunk, her telescope, phials, scales, beakers and boilers, stirrers and spoons, cauldron and ingredients—all hand picked by Professor Bluebell, who decided to take her to Gregory Gravebone’s Apothecary – ‘Not to worry, he’s exactly as terrifying as his name sounds but he’s rarely in the story, my dear’ – rather than to Tinsley’s—and she has all manner of bits and bobs, odds and ends that the Professor’s both agreed she ‘really must have’. She has all her books, though the lack of pictures makes her nervous for a short while.

‘Not to worry, love,’ her mum says very low in her ear. ‘We’ll figure something out.’

Mildred nods.

From there, only clothes and her wand remained.

‘Bit of a line at Malkin’s,’ Professor Drill tells her. ‘Tell you what—we’ll get your measurements, and you can pop off to get your wand while they’re fitting your robes. Sound good?’

Mildred just nods. She’s getting tired and the noise of the Alley and all its many, many inhabitants – already overwhelming – is getting right on the verge of too much. Hopefully, it’ll be quieter in the clothing store.

Periso Malkin—a squat witch of about thirty dressed in a purple-grey with a kind, round face that immediately puts Mildred at ease—comes along down the line of witches and wizards and other magical folk outside the store, a feathered quill and a simple black notebook floating in the air beside her. She looks terribly flustered, a curl of black hair out of place which she smooths down behind her ear as she approaches them. A white piece of tape curls and uncurls around her shoulders, zipping over to Mildred when she stops in front of her. Mildred gasps and laughs when the tape whips around her shoulders—and then from the top of her head to the middle of her back, around her waist, hip to ankle, and so on and on.

Miss Malkin has a low, sweet voice and is all smiles.

‘Hello dear—first year?’ Shrewd blue eyes look Mildred up and down. ‘And Muggleborn too. You’ll need a full set then – three plain work robes, a pointed hat,’ she says. _To the quill_ , Mildred thinks. ‘Two pairs of gloves, one dragonhide and one wool. One winter cloak – silver fastener, just a plain one, customisable on Housing. One autumn cape, and – pants or skirt?’ Miss Malkin asks, finally looking at Mildred in the eyes.

‘Um.’

‘Which do you prefer, dear?’ she elaborates. ‘We can do all pants, all skirts, you’ll need leggings for the winter of course but that’s workable. Some of both?’

‘Any truly self-respecting Witch wouldn’t be caught dead in _pants_ ,’ a sneering voice says in line behind Mildred. ‘Of course, she’s already wearing those terrible _Muggle_ clothes. I don’t know why I bothered – it’s clear she _isn’t_ a self-respecting Witch.’

Mildred frowns.

Turning, she finds that a girl about her own age is standing immediately behind her and at the girl’s shoulder is a woman with a strikingly similar face, only aged up about thirty years. They’re both very blonde, very pale, and their eyes are a piercing shade of blue that would be very pretty if they didn’t look so disgusted with Mildred. Both of them look down their noses at Mildred.

‘ _Must_ we shop at this place, Mother? Just look at the clientele.’

‘I’m afraid so. If there had been more time…’

‘But Esmerelda got her robes at Madame Ancherelle’s!’ The girl actually stomps her foot and Mildred snorts. She sneers at Mildred. ‘What are you laughing at?’

‘How old are you? Eleven? And you’re throwing a tantrum?’

‘Mildred,’ Professor Drill says, voice low. ‘That’s enough. Come on.’

Mildred obeys, turning when Professor Drill touches her shoulder. ‘Pants and skirt, please.’

‘Easily done,’ Miss Malkin confirms. Her expression looks a little fixed, but her smile is still warm.

The girl behind Mildred trades a laugh with her mother that fills Mildred’s ears like the odour from a rotted egg would fill her nose.

‘Alright, wand shop!’ Professor Drill says, overly cheerfully. ‘Thank you, Miss Malkin!’

‘You’re very welcome. Your clothes will be ready in half an hour, dear.’

Mildred murmurs a thank you and follows after the professors and her mum.

‘Half an hour!’ her mum says as they walk, nudging Mildred. ‘That’s fast, hmm? Like _magic_.’

That pulls a laugh from Mildred, as reluctant as it might be.

Seeing Mildred isn’t in the mood to chat—the world feels crammed and loud and all the laughs she hears, very suddenly, feel directed at her—her mum curls an arm around her shoulders and directs a question to the professors.

‘When I leave the Alley, will I forget everything about it?’

‘Hmm? No, you shouldn’t. Why?’

‘I couldn’t see it at all until I took Millie’s hand. And when she let it, it felt like…’ Her mum thinks about it for a moment before nodding. ‘That’s it. It felt like my mind glazed right over.’

‘Ah. How interesting, yes, the charms must have been adjusted.’ Professor Bluebell looks her over curiously. ‘I’ll look into it. Excuse me.’ She turns on her heel and with a _crack_ like a car backfiring, disappears.

‘Apparation,’ Drill explains, not seeming to notice how the loud sound made Mildred jump. ‘Mighty useful. You’ll learn that when you’re sixteen.’

She talks about that and other transportation – chattering away about Apparation and broomsticks and something called Flue Powder that takes magical folk through fireplaces – until they reach a small, crooked building. Its windows are coated with dust and filled from tabletop to roof with small rectangles. It takes Mildred a minute to realise that they are the ends of boxes jammed up against the windows. The door and detail of the shop has been treated to a fresh coat of paint – a deep navy – and a once-broken sign visibly mended reads _OLLIVANDERS_ – _Makers Of Fine Wands Since 382BC_.

‘That’s a while,’ Mildred’s mum says, and she dabs at her forehead with a handkerchief. ‘Right. In you pop, Millie.’

The interior is as dusty as it had looked.

A film of white dust has settled over every surface—racks and shelves and benches and tables are crammed into the narrow, long shop, and all stacked tall with towers and piles of the same boxes Mildred had seen through the window. The boxes are each about a foot long and very narrow and she realises after a moment of staring that they must contain a wand.

After another moment, her mouth drops.

There must be _thousands_ of wands in the store. Thousands upon thousands, she corrects herself as she walks a few more steps into the entryway and sees that shelves and rooms turn out of sight far into the back of the shop, each as full as the rest.

‘Ollivander?’ Drill calls, and Mildred flinches.

She hadn’t realised until the woman spoke that the shop had been silent. So still and silent that the rest of the world seemed muffled; like the business and bustle of the Alley was just a dream, or that this was. Either way, Mildred had walked into something that felt thick and soft and quiet and she felt a tight piece of herself unwind and relax, which was a magic in and of itself that she had never come across.

‘Brilliant,’ Mildred whispers, running her fingers across the closest box.

It _zings_ under her fingers, and rattles, and jumps, and clatters to the floor before skittering away under the table and shivering like a kicked dog.

Mildred backs away, running with a _thump_ into something warm and bony. She turns and looks up, and up, and up into grey almost white eyes. A tall and slender man with a face that looks as though it has been carved out of a gnarled bit of driftwood—all wrinkles upon older wrinkles—and a wild crown of twisted white hair on his head peers down at her.

‘Hello,’ he says in a reed-thin voice.

‘Hello. W-Well met. Hello,’ Mildred stutters back to him.

‘That,’ the man she assumed must be Ollivander says, ‘is not your wand.’

‘Um. No, sir.’

‘Funny little thing. Vine. Come here, darling,’ he says – _to the wand,_ Mildred realises when he stoops all the way down, folding nearly double to pick it up. ‘There you are. Is it the vine, or the phoenix feather? Easy to find out – try this one.’ He pushes another wand into her hand – the actual _wand_ , this time – and the instant Mildred’s fingers close obediently around it, he whisks it away. ‘The vine,’ he mutters. ‘Hmm. Hmm, yes, too excitable, that’s alright. Rarely a young person’s wand, you see. Too unsettled. Oh some are suited to it, but not you, know. Here.’

Ollivander presses a different wand into her hand. It’s as thick as her thumb and made of a very dark wand and Mildred’s hand feels as though it’s dragging down toward the ground.

‘Give it a flick,’ he prompts. Before she can, he tuts. ‘No, I see. Not walnut. Ah – hazel. Give it a go.’

This wand sits comfortably in her hand, almost eagerly, shivering in her palm. Mildred flicks it away from any of the people in the store and jumps when the table to the side _explodes_.

‘Oh!’ her mum yelps.

‘Maybe we should look at the candy,’ Drill suggests. ‘This is perfectly normal – she’s in good hands,’

‘Candy… Yes.’

Mildred hurriedly hands the wand back to Ollivander and tries not to shake under his shrewd assessment.

‘Hazel liked you. Too much, maybe. Interesting.’

‘Why?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Why interesting? What does that mean? Why did the dark one feel like lead?’

‘Walnut,’ Ollivander tells her, nodding to the darker wood, ‘is very selective. Resists being used at all by those it doesn’t deem worthy.’ Mildred’s face falls. ‘The wand, Mildred Hubble,' he says, though Mildred doesn't remember introducing herself, 'is intended for one person and one person alone. I am no more worthy to that wand than you. It tries to burn me,’ he grumbles, and his shock white eyebrows scrunch with annoyance. ‘Nasty little thing,’ he says fondly. ‘Hazel is exciteable. Not as much as vine. But volatile. Emotional.’ He taps the wand on his palm thoughtfully, not seeming to notice the sparks that spew from the tip of it with each tap. ‘Hmm. Hazel… Ah!’

He scurries through the shelves and, just when Mildred is hesitating and wondering if she is supposed to follow him, he reappears from an aisle far across the store.

‘Try this – no!’

He whisks it back just as fast, nearly as soon as her fingers touch it.

‘This one – no, no, no, not a good fit at all. This one – stop!’

Mildred can see that each are of the same hazel wood but of such varying designs that her mind boggles at the craft. Some are simple and straight, others crooked, some carved beautifully and others with a rough heft that feels firm and confident under her fingers. But none of them feel _right_.

Ollivander seems to have come to the same conclusion because he sets them to the side on a pile of other boxes, not minding that they aren’t at all ordered.

‘Not hazel, then. Hmm. Hold out your hand.’

He disappears again into the stacks and after a long minute a series of wands come floating out to Mildred. She takes each in turn and gives it a flick. Each produces something entirely different—an image of a gold coin, a wilted flower, a puff of smoke, a high-pitched squeal, a rancid smell of eggs and too-sweet syrup in a green shivering drip of smile, and on and on it goes until Mildred’s arm grows tired and she sees her mum peering in the window curiously, a bag dangling from her fingertips.

‘Mister Ollivander?’

‘What?’

‘Maybe… Maybe I don’t have a wand.’

‘Nonsense!’ he shouts back, voice dim as though from a very great distance. ‘The wand chooses the witch, Mildred Hubble! There are thousands we haven’t tried yet!’

And so it goes.

A waterfall of cooked hair, a shrill whistle like a boiled kettle, a frog leg, a muffin that runs on legs like a spider, a plucked handful of grass, a worm, a puff of dust, a shock of energy that crackles through the lights, sending them flickering, too many bangs that send boxes flying every which way to count. Two counts of small fires.

Finally, Ollivander returns. He holds in his hands a piece of rope, which he knots around Mildred’s wrist, from her shoulder to the tip of her middle finger, around her forehead, between her eyes, from chin to floor, and finally he clicks his spindly fingers and the rope returns to his pocket.

‘Cypress,’ Ollivander huffs, and marches, shoulders hunched, back into the stacks. He returns with only five boxes this time.

On the third box, Mildred feels a tingling in her fingers and the back of her head. Ollivander laughs, his grey-white eyes lighting with satisfaction and he opens his hand, letting the wand float from it. Mildred takes the wand gently from the air and feels a shock so close to pain run through her, making her teeth prickle like she’s bitten into a frozen icecream, and a burst of brilliant blue light bursts from the tip of the wand.

 _Her_ wand.

She knows it with a certainty she has felt only a handful of times before, and never for any reason she could properly express. A  _magic_ reason, maybe. 

Ollivander nods. ‘I should have known,’ he grumbles. ‘A good wand. Cypress, good and flexible, eleven and one quarter inches, with a phoenix feather core.’

Mildred nods along, though she doesn’t understand most of what he’s saying. He has muttered a lot of information to her over the course of what feels like _hours_ together. She looks to the enormous pile of discarded wands and guesses it has been at least one hour.

‘Seven galleons,’ he tells her, and then the door is opening and Professor Drill is paying and she’s talking loudly and Mildred’s mum is ooh-ing and ah-ing over her wand, and the store, and introducing herself to Mister Ollivander who takes her hand very carefully but readily and shakes hers with a strength that belies his incredible age and brittle appearance, and Mildred feels like she might faint.

‘I’m going to get some air,’ she gasps, and she steps out into the Alley, which is a mistake.

The peace of Ollivander’s store snaps, thrusting her back into the hustle and bustle. Mildred’s head spins—there is too much! Too much colour, too much noise and movement, and she runs without looking where she is headed, turning into a dark side street where she plonks herself down on an overturned barrel, her wand clutched in her hand still, and just _breathes_.

It takes a while – too long, longer than it has for some time – for her breathing to settle and for Mildred to open her eyes.

Her mum is standing a few feet away and when Mildred looks over, she smiles sadly.

‘It’s been a bit since you’ve had a spin, hasn’t it? You did very well.’

Mildred stands shakily. ‘Sorry for running off,’ she says and her throat feels rough, her words hoarse. She must have been making sounds.

‘I’d rather you didn’t, but it’s alright. It’s been a lot, huh?’

Her mum touches her shoulder gently, and then more firmly. Mildred leans into the touch.

‘Alright there, Hubble?’ Drill asks, sounding brisk and looking confused.

‘Yes, Professor Drill.’

Mildred’s mum gives her shoulder a squeeze. One of those _I’ll explain it to her_ squeezes. ‘Why don’t you have a look at the apothecary, luv?’

Mildred nods. She walks slowly, feet dragging with exhaustion, and catches the start of her mum’s explanation.

‘What do you magical folk know about autism?’

The Apothecary is only three shops down from Ollivander’s and Mildred stands in front of it, nose pressed to the cold glass. All she can think about is how much Jai would love this place—they have all manner of toads and frogs and lizards and snakes and she only moves when one of them hisses its upset at her for standing in the light.

‘First year?’ a wizard asks her. He’s probably the coolest person Mildred has ever seen—he wears his red hair long and shaggy like a wolf and a leather thong necklace hangs around his neck, twisted a few times around a green stone. From each ear dangles a small, thick hoop earring. Stocky and not too much taller than Mildred, though he looks about thirty, he wears a shirt similar to her own and worn, faded jeans. A brown leather jacket pulls a little tight over broad shoulders. Terrible scars and burns are blazened across his hands and forearms, up one cheek, and he smiles a bit ruefully when she stares. ‘It’s alright, everyone does it,’ he soothes her when she flushes. ‘Name’s Charlie. What’s yours?’

‘Um. Mildred.’

‘Well met, Um-Mildred,’ he jokes, blue eyes twinkling. ‘So, are you a first year?’

‘I – yes.’

‘Might want to get an owl, if you can. I remember I was so homesick I wrote to my mum and dad every day for three weeks.’

‘Then what?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Why did you stop?’

Charlie grins. ‘I started flying lessons in my fourth week, crashed into a wall, broke both wrists so I couldn’t write at all.’

Mildred stares at him, horrified.

‘It was my fault. You’ll be fine, so long as you hold onto the broom. I was showing off,’ he laughs, scratches at his scalp. ‘Anyway, this lovely lass here is a barn owl.’

Mildred follows him for a short while, none of the owls striking her in the same way her wand had. She asks if that’s how it’s supposed to work with animals too and Charlie shakes his head, shrugs.

‘Might, for some people. Most just get one that looks pretty. An owl, if they want to get mail. A cat if they like cats.’ He lowers his voice. ‘Not many people get toads.’

Laughing quietly, she follows him outside to see the large eagle-owls on the perches there.

A loud caw is the only warning Mildred gets before something heavy and sharp collides with her shoulder. It would have sent her to the ground if not for Charlie catching and steadying her.

‘Hello there, who is this?’

Mildred would like the answer to that too. She twists, scowls at the crow. ‘You!’

‘You know this handsome fellow?’

‘I helped him when he crashed into a pile of books. Hey, bird brain,’ Mildred says, trying to shrug it off her shoulder but not shoving too hard, wary of the talons pricking through her shirt. ‘You’re free! Go, fly away!’

Charlie grins. ‘I don’t think that’s going to work.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I think _she_ is a bit attached.’

‘No, I freed her.’

‘I mean attached as in she likes you,’ Charlie clarifies, nods when Mildred gives a little _oh_ of understanding. ‘Firsties aren’t really supposed to have crows, or corvids of any kind, but… Well, can’t argue with a natural bond. Don’t worry,’ he pats her free shoulder. ‘I’ll write to the Headmistress. She’ll approve it.’

‘But I don’t want a crow!’ The crow nibbles at her ear, mostly affectionate but with a little bit of a pinch. ‘Ow!’

Charlie – whom Mildred had quite liked until this point – _laughs_. ‘She’s a clever bird, you could do a lot worse.’ He guides her inside, plucks a cage and a bag of dead mice and a perch as they go along. When they reach the counter, he holds his hand out toward the crow, who regards him with a vicious yellow eye before stepping onto his hand. ‘Young – maybe two. I don’t recognise her, we don’t sell crows here, but if you freed her she must be from somewhere here.’ His pleasant smile and warm blue eyes both turn cold in an instant. ‘Nowhere good,’ he growls, and he reaches below the counter to pick up a jar. Dipping his finger into it, he makes soothing sounds as he wipes the ointment over the crows legs, where Mildred sees the skin is raw and cracked. ‘You don’t have to take her,’

‘I’ll take her,’ Mildred says when the crow looks over her shoulder. ‘But you better not peck me – hey!’

The crow hops, flicks her tail at Mildred after pecking her hand very lightly, little more than a tap.

‘They’re clever, mischievous little creatures,’ Charlie warns.

‘Can they carry mail?’

‘You’ll have to bribe her.’

The crow caws, low and throaty.

She looks awfully pleased with herself, Mildred notes.

‘Okay.’

* * *

A half hour later, seating in the Leaky Cauldron for a quick lunch before they head home – mostly so that Mildred could calm down and stop shaking – Mildred’s mum settles down next to her and slides a steaming cup in front of Mildred.

The Professor’s had tapped her trunk and sent it home – ‘it’ll all be on your bed waiting for you,’ Drill had promised - before they had each patted her shoulder and Disapparated with a _pop_.

The chatter of the pub fades into the background like white noise, like television static. Mildred sighs. Sniffles.

‘It’s fine, Millie luv. You’ll never have to see that girl again.’

Mildred blinks down at the table, at the cup. She lifts it up. Sips. Sets it down.

‘Hogwarts is big,’ her mum continues. ‘Bella was telling me is a huge castle on a hill and all the kids are divided up into Houses. You’ll never see her except in classes.’

Mildred nods miserably, buries her mouth and nose in her teacup so her mum won’t see the way her lips tremble.

‘Oh, Millie luv,’ she murmurs. Somehow, she still sees it. ‘You’ll have a grand time. Just you wait. You’ll see.’

‘Promise?’

‘I _promise_.’ She strokes over Mildred’s hair slowly. ‘What kind of a name is _Hallow_ ,’ she grumbles. ‘No wonder the girl’s got airs.’

‘Got _something_ ,’ Mildred grumbles, and her mum laughs.

‘A stick up the bum, hmm?’ She pulls back, eyes twinkling. ‘ _Never_ let me hear you say it, though.’ Mildred nods, giggling. She sniffles again, swipes under her nose with the sleeve of her jacket. ‘Oh Millie.’ Her mum kisses her forehead, then settles with her tea cup as well. ‘You forget everything about her. You will make really good friends, I know you will. And you’ll be a great witch. The _best_ witch.’

‘You think so?’

‘I know so.’

Mildred sighs. Lets the unproven words settle like a talisman in her chest. She leans into her mum’s side and sips her tea. ‘I’m going to miss you,’ she whispers, staring across the room at a hunched man with warts sprinkled over every inch of his skin, and a scaled woman, and a person with hair that looks long and stiff like delicate porcupine quills, and Tom the bartender who sucks on his one good tooth and juggles exploding beer bottles. It’s a confusing, busy world and right now she has her mum to help her through it but all too soon, she’ll be facing it alone.

‘I know it looks scary,’ her mum says, like she’s reading her mind. ‘But that doesn’t mean that it is. My brave girl – you were excited this morning, weren’t you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘There’s _magic_. Real magic in this world. But not a bit of it is worth anything if the person using it is mean. All the magic in the world can’t make someone a good person. You remember that, okay?’

‘Yes, mum.’

‘Good.’ Julie Hubble nods as though that sorts everything and, looking around the room more relaxed, Mildred finds that it has. Questions start to bubble in her mind again, and delight in this new world, and no one – not even _Ethel Hallow_ – can ruin this for her.

**Author's Note:**

> hey im unicyclehippo on tumblr as well, feel free to say hi or send me prompts or anything like that


End file.
